Movie O' 2011: Drive

I don't buy many physical copies of movies these days because why would I. However, after seeing Drive for the second time a few weeks I ago realized that I wanted to own it and at that moment I realized it was my top movie of last year.

Oscar nominations come out soon so this is relevant. Unlike last year where stuff like The Social Network and Inception and other stuff I had legitimate interest in was up for big prizes this year I don't know and don't really care what's going to happen and not just because James Franco isn't coming back.. I'm not the only one with this dilemma either. I've heard plenty of my film major friends say stuff like "I guess The Artist is the big movie this year but meh." Keep in mind that this isn't some anti-Oscar bait thing. I thought that The King's Speech was fine. No, it's just that not much this year struck that balance of being arty and being something I personally thought was good.

Even with all of those qualifiers though, I legitimately like Drive a lot on its own merits. It's my favorite movie of the year not the movie I thought was the least bad. As much as there is a bias against genre movies sometimes I feel like constantly praising something like Captain America or Rise of the Planet of the Apes just because they are really good genre movies is almost as bad. Meanwhile, Drive manages to have the intelligence and quality performances of "higher" cinema as well as the action and style of more genre fare.


Produced by one of the members of Daft Punk so it has that going for it.

If you haven't caught on by now, this isn't a review of Drive more just my thoughts on it and related subjects. Full disclosure, these other projects I've got going on mean that this is the kind of form most original posts on this blog are going to be in. Here are a few review-type thoughts though. Yes, the music is amazing. Yes, Albert Brooks is amazing. Yes, it's very slow in the beginning but there is a definitive point where stuff gets crazy and that dichotomy is very effective. Yes, scorpions.

With the 10 film pool, there is a distinct chance of Drive getting some academy nominations therefore giving me some stake in the awards but it doesn't matter. It's already proven itself to be my favorite movie of 2011.





And a real human being and a real hero. Couldn't resist.